Summer Plans

All the way across the country I was thinking about what I want my summer to be like.  (Hopefully) this will be a different summer than any other—a summer with no yard work, a summer with no house projects, a summer with a little more freedom than usual.  Here’s what I’m hoping to do a lot of:

1.  Reading—I’m hoping to do a lot of reading aloud to my cute kids this summer.  They all love reading now, but they tend to read only in narrow genres.  I want to expose them to things that I know they wouldn’t normally read but will love.  So far so good—last week we read “Half Magic” and we all loved it.  (I don’t think I’d ever read it either.)  I got the sequel at the library and they’re all annoyed that I won’t read it aloud as well, but that’s my nefarious plot.  Now they won’t resist being able to read it themselves!

Next up, we’re reading a Nancy Drew.  One of the guilty pleasures of my childhood.  And I think after that, “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” quite possibly my favorite L’Engle—definitely my favorite of her fiction books.  It’s beautifully written and IMPOSSIBLY complicated—I think we’ll probably have to diagram it as we go.  Such fun!

The girls are happily reading on their own this morning and Jared is listening to the 4th Fablehaven book on CD while he’s drawing.  We signed up for the library’s summer reading program last night and they’re motivated.  For the teen program every time they read 100 pages or listen for an hour they get to enter their names in one of the drawings—they’re having drawings for book packages, video games, movie tickets, and even a few ipod touches. 

 

2.  Walking—it’s been so long since I’ve exercised and this summer I want to explore as much of Hillsboro as we can on foot.  We love all of the sidewalks to walk on and there are also walking paths through the wooded areas. 

 

The kids get to walk with me because they need to get in shape for the pioneer trek the stake is taking them on in the middle of the summer.  Jared can already walk 5+ miles with no problem, but the girls need a little more exercise to get to that point.  Last week we walked 2.5 miles to the downtown library and Russ met us there and brought us home.  (After we went to dinner, where we accidentally entered through the bar and really freaked out the bartender.  Apparently 11 year olds are not legally allowed in the bar…)  It was fun to see all of the interesting plants and flowers along our way. We also met a librarian who had worked in the downtown Durham library for 7 years.  (She likes Oregon better…I cannot imagine why…)

3.  Sewing—The girls need clothes for the pioneer trek first of all.  And then it sounds funny but I just want to piddle around with my sewing machine.  It feels like a long time since I’ve just relaxed and enjoyed myself while sewing.  I bought some super cool floral jeans at goodwill last year—the kind that would be really dated if you wore them as jeans, but I think they would make beautiful skirts.

4.  Reading by the pool—let’s be frank here, dear friends.  The chances of me getting into this unheated pool at the apartment are somewhere between slim and nonexistent.  Especially when it’s not supposed to be much above 60 degrees for this whole week!  (Though they do have a nice looking hot tub that I’m sure I’ll spend some time in.)  But I love the idea of reading by the pool while my kids play there…seems like the perfect antidote to the chaos of the last few months.

5.  Travelling.  I know, I should be all travelled out right now.  And I AM!  But the whole reason that the kids & I left NC when we did was so that I would be recovered in time to go back to NC for our week at the beach.  I just can’t give that up—not my week in the warm ocean, not my week with our dear friends.  So by the end of July I need to be rejuvenated and ready to hit the road again.

6.  Camping—somewhere in there we’re hoping to fit some camping.  We’re told that the camping is great here—beautiful mountains, few bugs, cool nights—and we’re excited to give it a try. 

7.  Blurbing—I haven’t worked on any blurb books since June of last summer, and I’m hoping to get another year or two of my blog into book form this summer, plus a few other books as well.  It seems like a project I should really be able to fit in somewhere…I just haven’t figure out where yet.

 

So there you have it.  What my summer looks like from this side—it will be interesting to look back in a few months and see what it looks like from that end!